he
banks of the distant Mississippi, and concluding, in terms of suitable
energy, with the Teton tribe. The latter more than once received from
his lips curses as sententious and as complicated as that celebrated
anathema of the church, for a knowledge of which most unlettered
Protestants are indebted to the pious researches of the worthy Tristram
Shandy. But as Middleton recovered from his exhaustion he was fain to
appease the boisterous temper of his associate, by admonishing him of
the uselessness of such denunciations, and of the possibility of their
hastening the very evil he deprecated, by irritating the resentments
of a race, who were sufficiently fierce and lawless, even in their most
pacific moods.

In the mean time the trapper and the Sioux chief pursued their way to
the lodge. The former had watched with painful interest the expression
of Mahtoree's eye, while the words of Middleton and Paul were pursuing
their footsteps, but the mien of the Indian was far too much restrained
and self-guarded, to permit the smallest of his emotions to escape
through any of those ordinary outlets, by which the condition of the
human volcano is commonly betrayed. His look was fastened on the little
habitation they approached; and, for the moment, his thoughts appeared
to brood alone on the purposes of this extraordinary visit.

The appearance of the interior of the lodge corresponded with its
exterior. It was larger than most of the others, more finished in its
form, and finer in its materials; but there its superiority ceased.
Nothing could be more simple and republican than the form of living that
the ambitious and powerful Teton chose to exhibit to the eyes of his
people. A choice collection of weapons for the chase, some three or four
medals, bestowed by the traders and political agents of the Canadas as
a homage to, or rather as an acknowledgment of, his rank, with a few of
the most indispensable articles of personal accommodation, composed
its furniture. It abounded in neither venison, nor the wild-beef of the
prairies; its crafty owner having well understood that the liberality
of a single individual would be abundantly rewarded by the daily
contributions of a band. Although as pre-eminent in the chase as in war,
a deer or a buffaloe was never seen to enter whole into his lodge. In
return, an animal was rarely brought into the encampment, that did not
contribute to support the family of Mahtoree. But the policy of the